A lot has happened in the last 3 weeks. I joined my kids, Alex and Julie, in San Diego over the weekend of October 18 – October 22, along with their mother, Nan. Alex flew down to celebrate his 30th birthday. Julie was in town presenting a poster paper at an international genetics conference. Their mother, Nan, was down with her partner visiting his family.
I had lunch the first day with Julie. It took 20 minutes to find a parking spot. We had a great time. After lunch she went back to her conference and I headed to my rental car to go to the airport to pick up Alex. I could not find the car. I spent 45 minutes walking around the area until I was exhausted and panicking thinking about having to call Alex to wait at the airport. My feet were blistered and I was about to call the rental company to see if they could gps the car for me, and I was afraid that the rental car was towed away for overstaying during the time limit. I finally decided to use the last of my energy to go to an area I hadn’t searched. I thought it was not the place I came from to see the restaurant. However, I circled the areas I thought the car was in 3 times so I had no choice but to try things I didn’t think would work.
Yes, at the end of my energy and my emotional rope, I lucked into finding my car. I was 45 minutes past the expiry time for parking. Luckily, there was no ticket and the car had not been impounded. I was able to meet Alex at the airport on time and we continued on our way.
The next day I picked Julie up from her conference at noon. We made it to LegoLand at 3:00, only to find that the park closed at 5:00. Aarrgghh. The tickets were $110 per person, but the nice lady at the ticket counter stated that we could get twilight pricing of half price. Of course we took that option.
This was the Saturday before Halloween and many families were in costume. There was a special night from 5 – 8 for a family event with an additional ticket fee. We opted to go through a ninja ride because the line didn’t look too long. However, they fooled us. The line was mostly inside the building and we had a 45 minute wait. Of course Julie stated that she would win, as did Alex: on the ride you shoot bolts of energy from your hands by waving they over lighted button areas. Of course, I won.
We wandered around for the remainder of our stay, trying to see everything possible in an hour. The scaled lego cities were pretty cool. I can imagine that they were a lot of fun and frustration in making.
The kids and I separated as they wanted ice cream. I stayed in a snack area. Two things happened at the end of our time at the park. First, Alex and Julie found the Lego Star Wars area and stated that it was the best area of the park. And second, as the park was shutting down security stopped them from “reentry” to the area I was at. Thankfully their pleas of having to find their dad stuck waiting was accepted by the security patrol.
LegoLand was magical, if only for two hours. We drove back down to San Diego for a great family dinner. Not bad for the first day of a mini vacation.